Equally anticipated earlier this week when we tested AMD'southward HEDT Threadripper, Intel is also coming out with their ain new high-finish desktop series codenamed Cascade Lake-10. You already saw some preliminary information on the Core i9-10980XE, and at present we're bringing you a full series review by testing the 10980XE, 10940X, 10920X and 10900X CPUs.

The eighteen, 14, 12 and 10-cadre CPUs are all refreshes from chips that were released back in late 2022 as the 7000 series, codenamed Skylake-10. A year later these were relaunched as the 9000 series, nonetheless codenamed Skylake-X. Every bit part of the refresh, the CPUs came with a small factory overclock and featured soldered rather than thermal paste for connecting the CPU dice to the heatspreader. This essentially made them worse overclockers, but slightly better for everyone else.

Cascade Lake-Ten is a trivial more than a directly refresh. We're getting a little extra frequency, but we're besides getting a few more PCIe lanes, better retentivity back up, and some hardware security fixes. Oh, and prices have been slashed considerably.

Both the memory frequency and capacity support has been upgraded, going from 128GB of DDR4-2666 to 256GB of DDR4-2933. Boost frequencies have been increased by 200 to 300 MHz depending on the role, though performance gains might be commencement by the hardware security fixes for Spectre and Meltdown variants 2, 3, 3a, 4, and L1TF.

The biggest difference for potential buyers is the pricing change. The 18-core 9980XE has dropped from $two,000 to $1,000 now every bit the 10980XE. The fourteen-core model is down to $800 from $1,400, the 12-core model is down to $700 from $1,200 and the ten-cadre model is at present priced at $600, downwards from $i,000.

No doubtfulness, those are seriously heavy discounts. Only Intel is not being generous, they're only fighting to remain relevant and honestly we don't recall they're fighting difficult enough, as you're nigh to see.

For testing Cascade Lake-10 nosotros have the make new MSI X299 Creator motherboard. It comes packing 10 Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi vi, loads of Yard.2 ports and a whopping big 12-phase vCore VRM with 90A powerstages. A big thanks to MSI for sending this over for our testing.

Benchmarks

Showtime up as usual we have Cinebench R20 results. The 10980XE comes in behind the Ryzen 9 3950X, the 10940X matches the 3900X, while the 10920X and 10900X were roughly on par with the Threadripper 2920X and a picayune ahead of the Ryzen seven 3800X.

Right now the TR 2920X can be had for $500, and so that places the slower but more expensive 10900X in a bit of an awkward position.

At to the lowest degree for lightly threaded workloads the Pour Lake-X range is more powerful than 2d-gen Threadripper, though all models are comfortably browbeaten by the $370 Ryzen 7 3800X.

When it comes to compression performance using the 7-Zip File Manager, the Pour Lake-X range does okay. The 10980XE might get dusted by the 3960X, but at least it was a scrap faster than the previous generation 2950X.

The 2950X is at present priced to compete with the 10920X, a role it but manages to edge out. Meanwhile the 3900X matched the 10900X, so AMD besides offer considerably more value at that place.

AMD does much better when it comes to decompression performance and here the 3950X comfortably vanquish the 10980XE, while the 2950X and 3900X beat the residual of the Cascade Lake-X lineup.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2022 sees the 3950X merely edging out the 10980XE, while the 3960X was a good bit faster. The Ryzen 9 3900X and Threadripper 2950X also beat the 10940X, while the 3800X wasn't a corking bargain slower than the 10900X and 10920X.

Using the Puget Adobe Premiere criterion nosotros find similar results, though this fourth dimension in the consign test not merely the 3950X, but likewise the 2950X, beat Intel's all-time. Meanwhile the 2920X was able to outpace the 10920X and 10900X.

Playback performance was quite expert with the Cascade Lake-X parts, though nosotros see a tight grouping between the 3950X and 3900X.

The Core i9-10980XE performs well in the V-Ray benchmark. Sure, it is easily browbeaten by the 3960X which was 32% faster, but the Threadripper CPU likewise costs 40% more than.

If you're more focused on value, then become the Ryzen 9 3950X is the way to become, It'southward six% slower only costs 25% less. And so we have the 10940X in no man's land, but at $800 over again yous're improve off with the faster 3950X. Then we see the 3900X and 2950X have both the 10920X and 10900X covered.

The Corona results are more of the game, the 3950X is very close to the 10980XE and if you lot want maximum performance go the 3960X or 3970X. The 3950X also beats the 10940X while costing less and the 3900X does the same to the 10920X and 10900X.

Finally nosotros have the Blender results and this is another bad 1 for Intel, here the 3950X beats the 10980XE, while the 3900X matched the 10940X which renders the rest of the lineup even more pointless.

Power Consumption

AMD's more modern 7nm Zen 2 platform shows a real advantage in power consumption. The Ryzen ix 3950X was faster than the 10980XE in this test all the same we see the Intel CPU push total organisation consumption 29% higher. Due to clock speeds and voltages required to run at those speeds, the lower core count CPUs use more power, at least the 12 and 14 core models.

Gaming Benchmarks

The Core i9-10980XE provides a solid result in Battlefield Five, roughly on par with the Ryzen 9 3950X. For some reason though, the one% low operation of the 10900X and even the 10920X kind of sucked.

Intel loftier-end desktop lineup performs well in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, non quite too as 3rd-gen Threadripper, but overall still very expert.

Functioning in Tom Clancy's The Division 2 was good, the 10980XE dropped off the footstep a picayune due to lower clock speeds, simply 149 fps on boilerplate is hardly an issue.

Tom Clancy'south Ghost Recon Breakpoint isn't exactly a CPU demanding title but we include it to bear witness how performance looks similar in modernistic GPU-bound games, so proficient to see Cascade Lake-Ten didn't run into any bug hither.

Operation in F1 2022 was also solid, once more the 10980XE can be seen falling off the pace a little, only it'due south nothing you lot'd notice when playing the game.

The Pour Lake-Ten range was able to extract maximum operation from the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in Borderlands 3 at 1080p, so that's really all they needed to practice here.

The last game nosotros're going to look at is Fortnite and here the 10900X and 10920X perform well.

Overclocking

Using one.22v we were able to push these Pour Lake-10 parts to iv.8 GHz to five GHz depending on the model and how lucky we got with the silicon lottery. These overclocks boosted operation in Cinebench R20 by around xx-25%.

The gains are very impressive, but be aware they are far from free. Await to pay with a serious increase in power usage, which means bigger and more than expensive cooling will be required.

The 10900X isn't bad, we see a 27% increase in total system consumption which is inline with the 25% performance boost, of course those margins are a little skewed considering nosotros're including the full organisation consumption, but I feel that's more relevant for the end user.

Where things get mode out of mitt is with the higher cadre count models, the 10980XE saw total organisation ability usage increase by 91%, hitting 602 watts, and then practiced luck with that.

Looking at thermals, both stock and overclocked, the Cascade Lake-X processors forth with the 3960X and 3970X were cooled using Corsair'southward HydroX kits, along with a 360mm radiator. Stock the 3rd-gen Threadripper and Cascade Lake-X CPUs all ran between 63 and lxx degrees, and then a fairly tight range there.

Then when overclocked the temps quickly got out of command with the fourteen and 18 cadre models, basically a 360mm rad on a custom loop isn't plenty, even with fine voltage tuning. For the 10980XE, 4.5 to four.half dozen GHz would be more realistic on water.

Price vs. Performance

Here's a await at cost vs. performance using Puget's Adobe Premiere consign test. If y'all're a content creator information technology seems clear, go the 3950X, and if you require more PCIe lanes get the TR 2950X. Even Intel's ain 9900K does a better chore here, at least in terms of value. Of course, if you're not that interested in value and simply want performance, well there's the Threadripper 3960X.

The margins in Cinebench R20 were very like to what was seen in V-Ray, Blender and Corona, then they're a adept representation of the kind of cost to performance you can expect to see in these programs.

In terms of value and functioning the Threadripper 3960X destroys any and all Cascade Lake-Ten processors and if you actually care well-nigh value, then become the Ryzen 9 3950X. The 3900X, 2920X and 2950X also dominate these Cascade Lake-10 processors.

Decision

After checking out both the Ryzen 9 3950X and Threadripper 3970X & 3960X, these tests went pretty much equally expected. We knew performance of Intel parts was going to be similar to the previous generation Skylake-Ten, but unfortunately for Intel they just oasis't cutting prices enough to be competitive.

If yous can't offer the fastest HEDT parts, yous have to wait into value, something AMD did for the start ii generations of Threadripper at launch and later on as information technology kept discounting them.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is not merely cheaper than the Cadre i9-10980XE, but it's faster in the vast majority of workloads, sometimes much faster. When the 3950X was slower, the gap was not very broad. So for those not concerned with toll, the extra $400 for the TR 3960X is worth it as it'south a significantly superior production.

AMD also plans to continue selling 2nd-gen Threadripper processors as value-oriented HEDT options. On paper this may seem like an bonny alternative, only for new shoppers we'd recommend avoiding them. If you merely require 16 high-performance cores, get the 3950X which also runs on much cheaper motherboards. Nosotros'd only recommend 2nd-gen Threadripper right at present if yous require more PCIe lanes and tin't afford to drop $1,400 on the 3960X. Be enlightened the X399 platform is dead, just like Intel'southward X299 platform.

Bottom line, the only fashion we see Cascade Lake-X becoming viable is if they reduce pricing further. The 10980XE needs to come downwardly at to the lowest degree another $200, which would go far $50 more than the 3950X. The 10940X needs to drop downwards to $700, and the 10920X down to $600... the 10900X needs to be dropped entirely. The only advantage these offering over AMD's mainstream AM4 processors is more PCIe lanes, though they're only gen-3 spec lanes. It's mind-boggling to remember how much things take changed in such a curt catamenia of time.

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